One super upside of Recruiting Duty is the awesome Marine Corps Ball weekend. For the last two years we have had the awesome opportunity of spending the weekend in Jackson Hole, Wy at the Spring Creek Ranch. We are allowed to do this because our recruiting station is spread out over 4 states, so continuing training is hard, because everyone is spread out. So part of the weekend is spent with the recruiters in training. Wednesday we drove down to Wyoming, it was such a nice drive, we only got a little lost, we laughed and had fun the whole 6 hour drive.

Our minor detour was when we missed our turn and headed towards West Yellowstone and Quake Lake. We saw this cool river (above) and took a few pictures. Shortly after I realized we were on the wrong road and got back on the right path.

Paul and I back in our room afterwards.

look at that belly!

The ball itself was fun, the guest speaker was quite nice, short and sweet, but funny and he didn’t drone on. Food was pretty good and the cake was great, too bad I only got a piece as big as my thumb (I had been craving cake for two days, so I wanted more). We cut out early because it was snowing, and a bit cold inside, and neither of us were drinking, so it was a little boring, with everyone drunk and dancing, and I couldn’t really dance because I am huge and achey. But we had a good time.

The views at Spring Creek are just breathtaking, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to have gone there. This year and last. It can be so relaxing and pretty, so nice to just poke around and take a few pictures (even though it’s cold as shit)

The Drive home Saturday was a mess, it started to snow the night before and it was just really really yuckie. The roads were shitty almost the whole way, except about 80 miles in Idaho. We took the freeway home, although its a bit longer we were hoping for better road conditions, they may have been better, but still not good. Regardless, it was still a beautiful drive.

Okay this next picture you have to click on to get the full effect. See we were just outside Helena, about 30 miles, and we come across this pasture full of cows, but I noticed the brown cows and the black cows were separate. I thought it was weird but as we passed I realized the brown cows were not cows at all, but Elk, lots of Elk! Maybe 30-40 Elk! and if you click for the full image and you look closely standing in the middle you can see 2 big huge Bulls! there are several smaller Bulls you can spot if you have your elk eyes on.This picture really made me want to get a better telephoto lens, I cropped the crap out of it and it’s still hard to see. The second picture is an uncropped, just from the side of the road, photo.

The end.

We are home now and slowly getting back to real life. I have a boat load of laundry to do, and We are still playing the waiting game on housing in Butte, I really hope we hear something by this week. – Alana Make sure to like the Facebook page, when it comes time for baby all updates will be through there until I can get my shit back together:

4 Responses to Wyoming Vacation & Marine Corps Ball

I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Jackson Hole!!! Your pictures are so beautiful it makes me want to go even more. Mike and I have actually talked about moving around there after the Marine Corps but we will see how that goes. You look pretty in your ball gown too. Glad you guys had a nice weekend.

So incredibly beautiful. I love Okinawa, but am definitely missing the change of seasons.Our ball was much of the same. We left early. Balls and being in the final stages of pregnancy just don't mix.Hope your delivery goes smoothly and can't wait to see your little bundle.